NAACP Women Made History in Tennessee

To commemorate the NAACP’s Centennial, we take you to Franklin County, a rural area of 40,000 people in the southern part of Middle Tennessee. In 1958, two black women ? Mrs. Johnnie Fowler, and Mickey Marlow ? and one white man ? Scott Bates ? formed the area’s first branch of the NAACP, the “Franklin County Branch.” It’s one of the few branches nationwide where female activists, and not men, led the town’s desegregation efforts. One woman is still alive to tell the story of their struggle: Ms. Sarah Staten.